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Tag: Siddhartha Mukherjee

  • The Gene: An Intimate History

    The Gene, published in 2016, is a history of heredity from ancient speculation to the present. Siddhartha Mukherjee follows Gregor Mendel's pea experiments, Darwin's theory, the rediscovery of Mendel's laws, the discovery of DNA's structure, gene cloning and sequencing, the Human Genome Project and the arrival of tools that can edit genomes directly.

    The book does not shy away from the dark chapters: the eugenics movements in Britain and the United States, forced sterilisations and the Nazi programmes of murder justified in the name of heredity. Mukherjee uses them to frame present-day questions about genetic testing, the genetics of gender, sexuality, intelligence and temperament, and the ethics of altering human embryos.

    Running through the science is a personal thread: several members of the author's family in Calcutta suffered from schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, and he asks what that inheritance means for him and his children. The book is long but elegantly written, and it complements his earlier history of cancer.

    Book details

    AuthorSiddhartha Mukherjee
    First published2016
    Original languageEnglish
    GenrePopular science
    TypeNon-fiction
    Pages (approx.)590

    Themes

    • Heredity
    • History of genetics
    • Eugenics
    • Gene editing ethics
    • Mental illness in families

    Who should read it

    Readers who want to understand genetics and its ethical stakes through a blend of history and memoir.

  • The Emperor of All Maladies

    The Emperor of All Maladies, published in 2010, is subtitled A Biography of Cancer. Siddhartha Mukherjee, an oncologist, began writing it during his fellowship training, prompted by a patient who wanted to know what she was fighting. The book tells the story of the disease and of human attempts to understand and treat it.

    Mukherjee travels from an Egyptian physician's account of a breast tumour and the theories of Hippocrates and Galen to the radical mastectomies of William Halsted, the first childhood leukaemia remissions achieved by Sidney Farber with chemotherapy, the lobbying by Mary Lasker that led to the American war on cancer, the long fight to link smoking with lung cancer, and the discovery of oncogenes that led to targeted drugs such as Gleevec and Herceptin.

    Woven among these histories are the stories of his own patients, which keep the human stakes in view. The book won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 2011 and was adapted into a documentary series. It is notable for explaining complex biology clearly while conveying both the progress and the humility the disease demands.

    Book details

    AuthorSiddhartha Mukherjee
    First published2010
    Original languageEnglish
    GenrePopular science
    TypeNon-fiction
    Pages (approx.)570
    AwardsPulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction 2011

    Themes

    • History of medicine
    • Cancer research
    • Patient experience
    • Chemotherapy and targeted therapy
    • Public health and tobacco

    Who should read it

    Patients, families, medical students and anyone wanting to understand cancer's history and science.